How to become a dictator in Supreme Ruler 2020

Becoming a dictator is only possible when playing as a democratic country, and only under specific circumstances.

Edited: 2018-03-18 13:37

One of the entertaining things in Supreme Ruler 2020 is the opportunity to become a dictator when a democratic government loses an election. Elections are held every 4’Th year, and if a ruling government loses an election, the player will be given the option of changing their government type to a dictatorship with their military.

When an election is lost, a box will automatically appear, informing the player that the election was lost, and allowing the player to take control using the military.

After becoming a dictatorship, the domestic approval loses much of its purpose, and the player should instead keep an eye on their military approval rating. Generally, the standard approval rating of around 50% should be enough to maintain power – at least we have not had problems so far.

To be able to change from democracy to dictatorship, the Allow Government Change scenario option must be checked when starting a new game. The option is checked by default for new games, so there is no need to start all over unless you changed it yourself.

Regional elections

The regional elections are held every 4’th year of game-time, for many players this may seem like a long time, also depending on which country you are playing as. However, if you are playing as a smaller country, such as Denmark, then you will most likely be busying yourself with becoming self-sufficient, building up your defense and military, and stuff like that. Therefore, 4 years might actually not be very long.

The first 4 years, and sometimes more, of game-time, is often spend researching and building structures, briefly put, establishing your country and preparing for war.

Becoming a dictatorship is going to drastically hurt your relationship with nearby countries, not as much as declaring war on someone, but enough that you may want to consider it. If you have already had your first war, then it could hurt your reputation enough for other countries to start declaring war at you.

How to stage a military coup

Before you will be offered the option of becoming a dictator, you will need your domestic approval rating (DAR) to suffer significantly. If your people not already hate you, there are a few ways to relatively quickly lower your DAR. The most obvious being trough taxes and social spending.

By increasing taxes and lowering spending in areas such as Social Assistance, education, and health, you will typically be able to quickly lower your DAR. Maxing out taxes is another option. Be sure to do this in time for your DAR to suffer enough for you to lose the next election. After becoming a dictator you can change things back to normal.
The Allow Government Change scenario option must also be checked before starting the game. It is checked by default, however.

Changing back to a dictatorship

Unfortunately, once changing to a dictatorship, it is not possible to change back to a democracy.

It would have been a fun feature, and it is surely not unthinkable for a dictator to be re-elected trough democratic means. It would be unlikely for it to happen, however.

Effects of dictatorships

The main benefit is that you do not have to think about maintaining your domestic approval rating. Other than this, there are also a few disadvantages.

There is an increased risk of a coup if your military approval gets too low.

Bonus effects from DEFCON levels will be lower than other government types.

GDP/c is negatively influenced.

Has the lowest base rate of world market approval.

Some of these effects are barely noticeable when playing, however. And the risk of a coup is easily dealt with by maintaining a high military approval rating.

The military approval rating is easily maintained through successful military actions.